History

milestones

1896

Anne Galbraith Carey wonders what to do about school for her son Frank. She decides he would benefit most by living at home while attending a school in a country setting with rigorous classes in the morning, a hot meal for lunch, study hall, and sports in the afternoon.

1897

The Country School for Boys opens for classes in Homewood House, now part of The Johns Hopkins University campus. Thirty-two students enroll.

1910

The Country School for Boys moves from Homewood House to the main building on Roland Avenue on October 4. On December 20, the Country School for Boys officially becomes the Gilman Country School for Boys, in honor of Daniel Coit Gilman, first president of Johns Hopkins University.

1914

The first issue of The Gilman News comes out on January 13, 1914. The News is still published today.

1918

1922

The Open Air School experiement, begun 1911 in response to contagious diseases prevalent at the time, is ended with no dissenting votes.

1935

After delivering a talk on the sinking of the Titanic, bespectacled Gilman senior Walter Lord wins the Princeton-Gilman Alumni Cup for the best Sixth Form speech. Nineteen years later, Lord publishes A Night to Remember, his account of the ill-fated ship, which will be read by millions and which will launch his career as a writer. In 1995, the Walter Lord Library is dedicated in John M. T. Finney Hall, the new middle school building.

1947

Gilman wins its first Maryland Scholastic Association Lacrosse title. In the championship game against Boys Latin, trailing by four with five minutes left, senior mid-fielder Redmond C. S. "Reddy" Finney wins five consecutive face-offs, leading to five unanswered goals and a Gilman victory. In 1968 he is named Gilman Headmaster, a decision that is based on formidable credentials not limited to these late-game heroics.

1950

Gilman launches a decade-long effort to expand offerings in music, art, drama, and community service. A year later, its location no longer as "rural" as it was 40 years earlier, the Gilman Country School becomes Gilman School.

1967

Mathematics teacher Ned Thompson '45 introduces Gilman's first computer, a closet-sized machine on the second floor of Carey Hall. By the century's end a fiber-optic network, automated library catalog, resource databases, full Internet access, and smart boards bring a world of resources to the fingertips of Gilman students.

1968

In May 1961, the Board of Trustees decided that admission to Gilman should be 'without regard to race, color, or creed.' These bold trustees and alumni realized that the future meant integration, which at the time, was mostly an issue in black and white. The efforts of these men, as well as the Gilman firsts: first black teacher, Bill Greene, first black students Greg Emery '68, David Robinson '68, Stuart Simms '68 and Willard Wiggins '68, and the first Asian student Raymond Buck-Lew '65 helped create a School that is now noted as much for its its multiculturalism as it is for its superior academic reputation.

1969

Bill Greene becomes the first African-American to join the Gilman faculty. “Accepting this position was a major, and, indeed, a courageous decision on Bill Greene’s part, for not only was he leaving the employment of the Baltimore City public schools, but also he was the first African-American to become a Gilman teacher,” writes former Headmaster Redmond C. S. Finney '47.

Mr. Greene enjoyed a storied Gilman career that lasted more than three decades. He took over as director of Gilman Upward Bound, one of about a dozen programs nationwide and the only in Delaware, Virginia, and Maryland run by a high school, in 1970, a position he held for 31 years. Mr. Greene also coached basketball and track, taught math, and was Director of Middle and Upper School Admissions. Mr. Greene, who retired in 2001 as Assistant Headmaster, pushed the School to take crucial next steps to ensure that boys from high-poverty families and families of color would not just enroll, but flourish, as part of Gilman’s community.

1972

Seniors Tom Porter, Alan Kaufmann, and Ted Trimble defeat 80 other high schools to win WBAL-TV's "It's Academic" quiz-show championship. They donate their cash prize to Gilman's scholarship fund. Today that fund supports one in five Gilman students, enabling deserving boys from a wide variety of backgrounds to take advantage of a Gilman education.

1974

The first coordinated classes began with Bryn Mawr during the 1973-74 school year. The "tri-school community," so ingrained in the Gilman of today, fully blossomed in 1987, when Roland Park joined the coordination effort. Today, bridges across both Northern Parkway (between Bryn Mawr and Gilman) and Roland Avenue (between RPCS and Gilman) safely connect the campuses.

Photo circa 1977.

1988

Community service becomes a requirement with a minimum of 50 hours in one placement during one calendar year necessary for graduation. This requisite reflects Gilman's history of being a community school; ongoing community service projects include Green Grass, food drives to support the Donald Bentley Food Pantry, holiday toy and clothes drives to benefit Echo House, an annual American Red Cross blood drive, the Baltimore Independent School Learning Camp, and more.

1990

On April 21, 1990, the 1910 Upper School building, designed by one of Baltimore's foremost architects Douglas Hamilton Thomas, Jr., was dedicated as Carey Hall in memory of the school's founder, Anne Galbraith Carey. Her grandson Wm. Polk Carey '48 established a special fund for the building's maintenance. The Carey family has a history spanning more than 125 years of promoting educational excellence in the City of Baltimore, and Wm. Polk Carey holds the distinction of having made the largest single private gift in Gilman's history, giving $10 million in 2003 toward a planned renovation of Carey Hall.

1997

The School celebrates its 100th anniversary. Gilman Voices, 1897-1997, edited by Patrick Smithwick '69, is published. A series of centennial events and celebrations bring alumni back to Gilman from all parts of the globe.

2007

A new era begins when boys return to Carey Hall on December 10, 2007, after an 18-month, $15 million renovation. Eight months later, in September 2008, the Lumen Center opens. The new building expands the capacity of Carey Hall and features a 400-seat dining hall, art gallery, ten large classrooms, a lecture hall and the wood shop.

2009

Gilman welcomes its first class of kindergarten students in 50 years. The 1958-1959 school year was the last year for kindergarten at Gilman until 26 boys started school in a new dedicated wing in September 2009. Headmaster John E. Schmick '67 introduces The Gilman Five, a uniform framework of expected behavior for all Gilman boys.

2014

Gilman joins Global Online Academy, a consortium of 49 leading independent schools from around the world that provides online courses to diversify and deepen the student learning experience. Gilman is the only Maryland school participating in this program.

2016

The School completes a two-year project to reconfigure and resurface most of the playing fields. Improvements include a state-of-the-art artificial turf field in Alexander Sotir Stadium, a re-positioned baseball field with dugouts and batting cages, a revitalized natural grass multi-sport playing field, and a relocated Little League baseball field.

Our Founder

Anne Galbraith Carey

Gilman School owes its very existence to the imagination of one young mother, Anne Galbraith Carey, who sought a quality education for her eight-year-old son, Frank. She believed that her son would benefit more from going to school in a country setting while living at home than from attending the city public schools or from going to a boarding school in New England.

To set her plan in motion, Carey gained assistance from one of the nation's most prominent educators. With assistance from Dr. Daniel Coit Gilman, the first president of Johns Hopkins University, and other prominent Baltimoreans of the day, her vision became a reality when The Country School for Boys opened its doors on September 30, 1897, in the Homewood mansion on the Johns Hopkins campus. In 1910, The Country School moved to its current 68-acre campus in Roland Park and changed its name to The Gilman Country School for Boys. In 1951, the "Country" was dropped, and the School became Gilman School.

Today Gilman is a diverse community of more than 1,000 boys in grades kindergarten through 12 who come from all backgrounds and segments of the Greater Baltimore area. Gilman remains committed to the ideals Mrs. Carey instilled more than a century ago, and continues to help boys develop in mind, body, and spirit while preparing them for college and a life of honor, leadership, character, and service.